


Fake Your Death

by Wonderless



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: BAMF Loki, Dubious Consent, Loki Redemption, Loki plis what are you doing - Freeform, M/M, Mentions of suicide attempt, Possible Character Death, Torture, mascara alert
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-24
Updated: 2015-02-21
Packaged: 2018-03-03 00:39:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 13,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2831837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wonderless/pseuds/Wonderless
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint doesn't even gaze up from polishing his arrows as he remarks, "Tony, I'm pretty sure that if Loki ever wrote a How To, it'd look something like this. </p><p>'Manipulating People 101<br/>Option A: Sleep with them<br/>Option B: Fake your death<br/>Option C: Why not both?'"<br/>(Not Iron Man 3, Thor: TDW, or Winter Soldier compliant)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Life is a game

**Author's Note:**

> It's winter break, and instead of applying to internships, what do I do? Write my first fanfiction. Enjoy? :)
> 
> All characters belong to Marvel and/or their respective owners, etc etc.

"Come on, Avengers. Come on, Rudolph. Let's give them hell." Tony places a quick kiss on Loki's lips before flipping down his face plate.

"Do be careful, Stark." Loki replies. "The Mad Titan has gathered such a diverse army that you're hardly the most colorful one in the skies now. I don't know how well you'll perform without obnoxiousness as a shield." Thanos's army is diverse indeed, and a quick survey reveals thousands of creatures from at least 28 species fighting for him, and they all have weapons that would be bitches to be hit by.

"Time to reclaim my title as most obnoxious flying object then," Tony snarks back, and then he's off, a streak of red and gold across the sky.

"Alright, JARVIS,"  Tony switches his attention to the battle. "Remember the anatomy lessons our resident god gave us? Put them to use, blast these bugs and lizards and whatnots to oblivion. The faster the better, because I want celebratory scotch after this."

"Sir, assuming you refer to alien vital spots lesson and not the bedroom ones -"

"JARVIS, did Loki reprogram you to flirt poorly with me?"

"Targets acquired, ready to fire. And Sir, I can neither confirm nor deny that accusation."

"Let's give New York some fireworks then. JARVIS, fire away."

His suit releases a dozen missiles, and a dozen aliens fall from the sky. Across the battlefield, the rest of the Avengers and the US military are doing their thing. Hundreds of aliens fall from the sky.

"Too easy," he remarks into the comms before firing another round.

* * *

 

He lied. It's not easy. He's out of missiles, his suit's running out power, and they're so badly outnumbered and outgunned. There's so much fire and rubble all around him, and he pretends he can't see the bodies strewn across the battlefield. Thanos striked so much sooner than expected, and Asgard's promised reinforcements may not arrive until the Earth is a shipwreck in the solar sea.

They can't stop though, not when they're the last stand against Thanos and the final gem.

"We... can't win." Loki's exhausted voice comes over the comms. "Tell me where the scepter is... and I will take it elsewhere, lead Thanos away... buy Earth time to regroup."

"Or so you can... deliver it straight to Thanos and... bargain for forgiveness? Not a chance..." Natasha sounds equally breathless but cuts him off immediately.

"The scepter will remain here. We have scientists and strategists working on defending the Earth with it, and we will win." Captain Spangles adds.

Tony readies an argument in support of Loki, but Loki comes on his private comm. "Tony, you may be the only one who trusts me here... and you need to believe me when I say," Loki pauses, and the the sound of bones cracking and screeching follows. Tony hopes neither sounds are from Loki. "Apologies for the interruption... " Loki continues while heavily panting. "I had to deal with a slight problem. Tony, I have lived long enough and seen enough to know we have no chance here. Tell me... where is the scepter?"

"The Triskelion, Basement floor 7, section H, electromagnetic radiation lab. Read the signs on the doors. You won't be able to track its magical signature, and I know because I designed the container that way. And don't push random red buttons or you may cause another Chernobyl disaster."

He barely has time to finish before gunshots and explosions sound in his earpiece and Loki screams. Then almost immediately, all he can hear is static noise.

His heart misses a beat. Loki. "JARVIS. Help me out, buddy. Can you find Loki in this mess?"

JARVIS responds by adding a red dot to the map in the upper right corner of HUD.

"JARVIS, Odin's beard bless you, or whatever it is Thor likes to say:" Tony flies towards the dot without delay.

He isn't sure what he expected, but what he sees isn't what he hoped for. Actually, he doesn't even want to see this. Ever. Loki's shot full of holes and shrapnel and he's bleeding everywhere and that can't be good for even a god.

"Tony." Loki whispers in that weak, pliant way that he only does when he's blissed out after sex, and that voice mixed with this occasion is so wrong. "I do believe I'm going to die. Will you keep me company for a few more minutes?"

So Tony pretends that there are no missiles dropping all around him, he disregards JARVIS's warning and takes off his helmet and gauntlet, he kneels down in the pool of blood growing around Loki's body. His hands waver awkwardly for a place to go before finally settling for holding in the blood and organs trying to escape from Loki's body.

"Thank you. For everything." Loki's saying it in _that_ way again. Tony suddenly wonders if that's how Loki voices complete trust.

"What's going to happen to you?" The genius asks dumbly.

"Life is a game -" Loki pauses to cough up blood. "And Death is just the next level, my dear Anthony.”  And Tony, rambling genius extraordinaire, swears English is his mother tongue, but the sequence of words Loki just stringed together make no sense to him. Loki Laufeyson's incoming death makes no sense to him.

 _Come again? I thought I was dating God of Mischief, not Father of Philosophy here._ Tony wants to joke, but there’s a body bleeding out by the seconds, and the gravity is so great that Tony can’t force air out of his lungs.

He’s not even the one dying here.

Loki attempts an amused huff that drowns in a gurgle of red. “I’ve finally left you speechless.”

“I -. You -. Congrats. Achievement unlocked. Now tell me, how do I fix this?”

“You don’t.”

Loki’s left hand feebly reaches out for his, but Tony dares not remove the only source of pressure on the nearly eviscerated mass that is Loki’s abdomen. The god insists still.

Tony reluctantly lifts one hand and then the other. His bloody hands start towards Loki’s outstretched hand but pause and flit around for precious seconds, aiming for any destination but their original. All the courage in the world can’t bring him to touch the same hand that Death now grasps.

"Tony, hand." Loki's voice carries a hint of desperation, and that's the first time Tony has heard him this way, and it also sounds wrong because this is Loki who always thinks seven steps ahead and never gives desperation a chance to catch up to him. And they had just talked last night, and after a long-winded game of guess-the-God-of-Mischief's-intentions, Tony finally caught on, and they had a fight that resulted in Tony downing half a bottle of expensive scotch, and he finally got it through Loki's stubborn head that it's okay to ask for help. And now all Loki is asking for his hand, and he can't give that to him. 

“No, Loki. You’re not dying. I can cryopreserve you. We can grow you new organs. Or artificial organs if you're feeling sci-fi. We can get Bruce too. Two geniuses. Should take us a max of two days to perfect the tech to patch you up to perfect. I can fix this. I'm a genius. Why can't I fix this?”

“Stark, I hate to beg for small favors, but will you give me the comfort of your hand while I lose another liter of blood or not?”

“Ok, fine. Have my hand, in fact, both of them.” Tony relents. His grip is unsure; Loki’s, steel. "Wow, you're not as weak as your condition suggests. Is that an alien god thing or love me too much to let me go -"

His musing is cut short because Loki is pulling him downwards with too much strength for even a dying god, and the god’s other hand is reaching for his chest. Pain. Bright, white, hot pain. In his chest, spreading everywhere. Oh god. What is happening?

His arc reactor – where is it? What happened to Loki? Is he okay?

Loki’s holding his reactor, doing some hocus pocus magic that seems to drain the glow of the reactor until there is not a scratch on him. Yeah, the fucker is more than okay. He drops the now-dull device onto the ground and disappears in a flash of green, and Tony crawls to his reactor and frantically shoves it back into his chest. The pain persists. So, the fucker managed to empty an endless source of energy. What a fucker indeed.

"Guys, I think Loki betrayed us. I also may have told him the location of the scepter. I think I fucked up," Tony manages to groan into the comms before passing out in the middle of the battlefield.


	2. Infinite monkeys, finite time

Nick Fury scans the screens in front of him with his one eye. The panels that display the fight in New York make him clench his teeth, and he can feel his lost eye twitching behind the eyepatch. "Contact Secretary of Defense," he commands.

The face of a middle-aged man appears on the communications screen; his eyes are drooping, expensive suit displays wrinkles, and there's a coffee stain on his silk tie. Fury makes a silent note of his obvious exhaustion. "Director Fury, the military can't hold out against this, and I assume the same for the Avengers?"

"Secretary, can they hold out for a big longer? SHIELD has sent agents to facilitate evacuation of civilians, and we'd appreciate the cover."

"You have three hours, Director, and then I will order a tactical retreat." The Secretary lifts his coffee mug to his lips, and the words "URGENT CALL. CALLER: NATASHA ROMANOFF" appear on the screen to replace his face.

"Thank you, Secretary. Now, if you'll excuse me, I an urgent call from the boy band's babysitter requires my attention." He ends the transmission. "Accept call from Agent Romanoff."

"Director Fury," Natasha begins, and Fury takes a deep breath. Over the years since taking Natasha on, he's come to learn that the more nonchalant Natasha is while reporting, the less he wants to her what she's about to say. "Loki betrayed us, he knows where the scepter is, and he's headed for it"

"Was it Stark? Don't answer that - it has to be Stark. Only level 7 clearance and above operatives know of the scepter's location, and it seems like Mister Hack-into-SHIELD-databases-and-trade-all-his-world's-secrets-for-a-good-lay-Stark found out too. I'll clean up Stark's mess, and you are to stay with the team until further instructions." And people wonder why he constantly wears an "I'm so done with this shit" face.

"Activate lockdown procedure four-oh-seven. Evacuate researchers and direct all security personnel to electromagnetic radiation and weapons testing centers." The Director gives one last command to the AI before throwing on his black leather trench coat, grabbing the newest gun in his impressive collection, and striding out of his Triskelion office. He has an alien motherfucker to shoot down.

* * *

The SHIELD agent stationed at stairwell Theta lets out a grunt of confusion when something unseen bumps into him. Before he has a chance to raise an alarm, the unseen object knocks him unconscious, drags him into a storage closet, and locks him in.

Loki silently curses himself for nearly getting caught. He may be invisible, but he still needs to be more careful while turning corners. For good measure, he throws up an illusion before opening the stairwell door - can't have the mortals' pesky cameras recording a door opening by itself now, can he?

He descends to basement floor 7, pauses in front of the door leading to section H, and frowns. How has he made it this far without incident? Surely, the mortals know he's after the scepter by now? He tosses up another illusion before opening the door out of the stairwell and to the main compound, and he feels his invisibility spell being torn away from him while a line of black-clad mortals blockade the hall he just stepped into, all training their weapons on him.

The woman in the middle emphasizes her gun and speaks, "You are surrounded. Armed agents block the staircase you just came down, and magic-jamming frequencies prevent your from magicking your way out of here. I should also mention that these guns are modified Chitauri weaponry, and they will punch you full of holes. Put your hands in the air and come with us peacefully, or we will shoot."

Finally, some resistance. He was becoming concerned for the mortals and their immense stupidity that let them think leaving such a powerful weapon so poorly defended was a good idea. Really, he's rather impressed by the magic-interference technology because right now, he can't even access interdimensional space to summon a knife. It's simply delightful when a mission actually requires him to think. He studies the six humans in his way and notices the agent who spoke has a single diamond ring on the fourth finger of her left hand. He puts on a winning smile and comments,"Newly engaged, I take it? Well, my lady, I shall go peacefully as I would hate to injure you before the big day." He slowly raises both hands into the air while raising an eyebrow and the corner of his lip at the agent in challenge.

She tightens her fingers around her gun and avoids his eyes for a fleeting moment - _nervousness_ , Loki observes. _Good. She should be nervous_ \- before she hardens her face into a glare and barks out, "Turn around and walk towards us. Do not make sudden movements, or we will shoot."

He makes a show of turning around and taking walking backwards. Loki sincerely hopes every step he takes has a predatory edge, nevermind that he's not even facing the humans. Not that he plans on harming them unnecessarily - they're just so fun to terrorize.

Twelve steps later, the woman commands him to stop. Loki, the God of Mischief, obeys.

He hears her walk up to him. Fights a grin off his face. Breathes deeply.

She reaches up to cuff his hands, and Loki strikes with the speed of viper. He grabs her hands, elbows her in the guts, spins around, deftly pries the diamond from her ring, and hides the diamond up his sleeves in one smooth motion. Then he palms a pistol from her holster, turns her around, holds her around the heck with his left arm, and points the gun to her head.

He raises his chin and looks down upon each of the remaining five humans in turn. "I wish you people no harm, so I make you a simple offer. Give me the scepter in exchange for the continued existence of your world. In fact, because I am in a generous mood, I will revise the offer. Give me the scepter in exchange for the continued existence of the universe."

One of the five agents adjusts an earpiece and starts muttering into a microphone, and Loki takes the downtime to practice optimism, a skill Thor claims he sorely lacks. _The humans are going to put the fate of the universe in his hands, he's going to walk out of here with a scepter_ and _without killing anyone, he's going to somehow avoid capture by Thanos while he works out the rest of this impossible plan, and Tony... maybe Tony will... Dammit-._  

"Allow him access to the electromagnetic radiation lab." His daydreaming is cut short when the mortals finally come to a decision, and he's alarmed by how close his mind wandered to dangerous, sentimental territory in the middle of a mission.

 _Compartmentalize, compartmentalize,_  He reminds himself. He gave up Tony when Thanos saved him from the void and made him a pawn. He gave up Tony when he learned of Thanos's plans to destroy the universe. He gave up Tony before he ever met him. There's no use in thinking of Tony now or ever again. He needs to focus.

One of the humans asks him to follow. He follows along, hostage still in his arms, and the rest of the humans fall in line behind him, guns held at ready. _Focus._  He focuses on the code the leader types and the card he swipes every time they encounter a password-protected door, he focuses on the measured steps of the mortals behind him, and he focuses on the human in his arms. Her entire body is tense, but her pulse is too slow, breathing too controlled, as if she's preparing to lead him into a trap and strike. Loki decides to strike first.

The leader turns a corner, and Loki immediately twists around the corner to take him and his hostage down with a blow to the head each. Four left. The first two appear around the corner with guns raised, and Loki immediately drops to the ground. Their shots fly across the hall and hit the walls. He kicks out and trips one who hits the ground hard, and he uses the momentum to stand up, disarm the other mortal, and twist so that his back is pressed against the human's chest. Loki flips him into the last two humans who just rounded the corners and runs. He wonders if they dropped their weapons in a panic to catch their comrade-turned-projectile or if they scrambled backwards and let him become well-acquainted with the ground.

Loki races down the halls, and more mortals appear out of everywhere firing at him. One of them hits him in the left shoulder, and he feels his scapula shattering. He stumbles and resumes running even faster. The doors he passes read things like  "Electrostatic Bioweapon Labratory," "Genetic Recombination lab," "CAUTION: Sharks with lasers,"  "Infinite Monkey Theorem Testing Department," and other things. Another bullet hit his right calf. None of them read "Electromagnetic Radiation Lab." He relies on adrenaline to drown out the pain. Agents appear in front of him to block off his way, and he ducks into a room marked "High-Reactivity Material Science Labratory.

He's too busy scanning the room for exits and tools to notice the doors clicking shut behind him, and only when a full ten seconds pass without agents bursting into the room does he realize: every door here requires multiple security bypasses to enter, and this door was conveniently open. He walked straight into a trap after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, writing Loki is so much fun. Before every paragraph, I ask myself, "What would Loki do?" Every time, I have to play mind games with myself to answer that question. It's been two chapters, and I don't know how many times I quadruple-bluffed myself anymore.


	3. Dissolve

_Loki is reclined on a black, upholstered revolving chair. His legs are propped up on the table, invading Tony's work space while he adds upgrades to his suit. In his arms is an organic chemistry book that he's flipping through at a feverish pace. Bruce left it on the coffee table last night, and Loki opened it up out of curiosity. He didn't expect much at first - when you sum it up, chemistry is just a less-efficient, non-magical version of alchemy. Now, he wants to raid Bruce's library._

_Tony pauses from his work and speaks, "I didn't know you cared about human science, what with your 'kneel because all of you are beneath me' entrance and all."_

_Loki finishes his paragraph and responds, "I simply wish to understand how Midgardians progressed so far with such short lives and so little affinity for magic."_

_He's beginning to understand though. To these humans, not having magic is not a set back. For tasks like healing and energy storage, the humans have found chemical alternatives. It's neither inferiority nor biological defect - it's a different way of problem-solving, and he wants to learn everything about it._

_All air leave his lungs, and his hands panic for something to do. He settles for turning page after page too rapidly to read anything. Who is he to crave knowledge from a world he once looked down upon and attempted to subjugate?_

_The sounds of Tony's tinkering stop again, and Loki looks up to see Tony eyeing him with concern. "Hey, you okay, Lokes? I get that's only an undergraduate textbook and you're a genius and all, but people don't even flip through_ Green Eggs and Ham _that fast."_

_He wants to tell Tony about the guilt-dipped blade that found its way between his ribs, but It's a war between pride and baring his soul to the one person in all the realms he thinks he may trust, and pride wins. Loki says, "Yes, I'm fine." as normally as possible and stares at the book blankly._

_Loki barely notices Tony standing up and walking around the table, and when he processes it, Tony is pulling him to his feet and into his arms. "Hey there now, whatever's messing up the hamster wheels in that head of yours, you don't have to tell me. But take it from me, it's okay to be less than fine." He feels Tony's hands stroking through his hair._

_He deserves Tony less than he deserve the book._

* * *

Loki glances around the room he's now locked in. There are glass cabinets with chemicals, glassware and laboratory equipment are organized on a shelf near the back of the room, and there are machines he recognizes and machines he doesn't. Everything is labeled. _So_ meticulously labeled.

The room has large windows, and through them, he sees a familiar figure wearing a black eye patch walk up. The adrenaline is dying down, and the wounds in his shoulder blade and leg are making themselves known. His magic still doesn't work. He shifts more weight to his good leg and faces his visitor. Nick Fury. How Tony described him was, "If he's not shoving homeland security down your throat, he's shoving sticks up his ass."

Fury's two most-worn expressions are disapproving and condemnatory, and most of the time, it's hard to which one he's wearing without context clues. Loki's pretty sure this situation calls for condemnatory. Fury looks him over with his one eye and begins, "I thought the deal was you pay for your crimes by acting as a defense consultant. What part of attacking Stark and breaking into a high-security SHIELD compound to forcibly obtain a powerful weapon of extraterrestrial origin fits into the job description of defense consultant?"

Definitely condemnatory. Loki strokes his chin and makes an act of pondering the question before replying. "The part where I take the infinity gem and the scepter it powers across the galaxy to lead Thanos away? He knows it's here, and he will tear this planet of yours apart to find it. Personally, I find being a defense consultant rather difficult when the realm you're consulting for is wiped out."

"And say I believe you for a second - why would you attack Stark?"

"I take it murder attempts aren't among accepted break-up methods here?" Loki says it dryly, but a wave of sorrow laps at the careful walls he built. _No regrets now_ , he reminds himself; he needs the humans to hate him for this to work.

Fury pins him down with his one eye. "Laufeyson, I'm in the middle of a extraterrestrial invasion here, and I don't need _consultants_ I can't trust. I'm returning in two hours and I expect to know why you're after the scepter and whose side you're on, and no riddles or prophecies or that bullshit, or I will use harsher methods. I'm not above breaking the Geneva Conventions to keep this world safe. Two hours to lay everything on the table. Do I make myself clear?"

"Director, I have a plan, but talking to you isn't part of it" The adrenaline is completely gone, and he has to mask the pain it left behind with a bored roll of his eyes. "I'd tell you I plan to save the universe out of the goodness of my heart, but you wouldn't believe me." He feels blood oozing down both wounds, and he has until he passes out from blood loss to get the scepter and get out. Fury is wasting his precious time.

"You have two hours." Fury starts walking away and then turns around with a swish of his coat. "And don't try making explosives or breaking out of here of any of that. Everything in this room is made to withstand the volatile chemical reactions that go on here. You'll blow yourself to pieces before you put a dent on anything."

Fury disappear around the corner, and the agents follow.

It's a good thing he doesn't need two hours to break out of here.

Step one of breaking out involves limping to the glass cabinets and grasping for the bottle labeled "Ibuprofen." A painkiller; he read it just weeks ago. Loki swallows a few pills and laughs a humorless laugh, appreciating the irony of Loki Laufeyson, magicless and resorting to the products of Midgardian chemistry to solve his problems.

Step two involves chewing gum. Tony is one of those  _Gum? Do you have any gum?_  people, and Loki's taken to carrying a pack of gum on him at all times. He liked to joke that he's been reduced to Tony's gum dispenser, and he didn't mind at all. After all, he was the one kissing him. Tony's favorite flavor is mango. Right now, as he pulls out a stick of gum and chews on it, he's really regretting being a "little shit" (Tony's words, not his) and getting ghost pepper flavored ones instead of mango.

Step three involves grabbing the fire extinguisher in the back of the room and studying the fire escape plan taped above it to memorize the path from this room to the EM Radiation Lab.

All that's left to do now is wait for the Ibuprofen to set in. Loki slides to the floor, turning the fire extinguisher this way and that way. It's a foam fire extinguisher, and he smiles as warm nostalgia washes over him. Maybe he can store it in interdimensional space and bring it with him. He blows a bubble, and his whole tongue is left burning. Whoops. If Tony was here, he'd say that's karmic payback.

When the pain stops, he stands up again and tests his gait. The shot leg is still weak, but he can move faster than at a shuffling limp without debilitating pain. It will do. 

Loki steps to the glass window and reviews the path he needs to take to the scepter and exit. It's not far. He's given up trying to stop the wandering of his mind as he removes the gum with his left hand and slips out the stolen diamond into his right. Maybe the human he stole the gem from will find it after this mess, and if not, then the loss of her engagement ring is a small price to pay for everyone's continued existence. He sticks the diamond into the wad of gum and sticks them onto the wall so that the diamond's point is fixed in contact with the window.

Some art is best admired from a distance, so Loki steps back to admire his handiwork. _Behold, the greatest artifact of the century, the magnus opus of a god - a diamond stuck to a window with chewed gum,_ he narrates for an audience within his mind. That felt like something Tony would say. How much did Tony rub off on him? _But all legends turn to dust, and so too must this._ He picks up the fire extinguisher and swings it with a great swing, and the fire extinguisher comes into contact with the gum, and all the momentum in that one, powerful motion is transferred to a diamond small but strengthened by millennia of heat and pressure, and all the strength of a god tapers to a single point - that where the diamond meets the glass.

Dust rains from the sky and and toward him, glittering as it catches the light.  Loki raises his head and imagines he hears the roar of the stars.  _Whence stardust we come, to stardust we return._ This though, is certainly the melodramatic part of him narrating.

Alarms are now ringing, and he picks up the fire extinguisher and diamond-gum-glass conglomeration and runs in the direction of the scepter. Again, he breaks the window the same way. More glass falls on him.

Anthony said the scepter is in a containment case, and only the bulky, cylindrical case is large enough to hold it. Loki needs both arms to carry it, and he regrettably leaves the fire extinguisher behind. How has he grown attached to a fire extinguisher? He runs towards the stairs as red alarm lights pulse all around him. He hears humans shouting and more gun shots, and he feels more of them hitting him, but he can't feel pain. He reaches the stairs and runs up three steps at a time until he escapes the range of magic-jamming device, and magic erupts from his fingers to teleport him elsewhere.

He and the case land in a forest clearing bathed in the light of a full moon. Yggdrasil's roots have branched into this grove, and that's where he plans to head tomorrow. For now, there's a pond in the clearing that reflects every star in the sky, and Loki moves to sit by water while he digs five bullets out of himself. Glass still clings all over him, and and he can make out every speck illuminated by moonlight in his reflection. In his face, he sees a galaxy, and he wonders if he's crumbling into stardust.

* * *

_When Tony starts working, he never really stops until a major breakthrough or exhaustion - whichever hits first. His workshop is ridiculously practical, containing only tables, parts, tools, and machinery. There used to be a coffee machine too, but Tony threw it out when Dumm-E knocked it over and shorted out a projects one too many times. When Loki first starts accompanying Tony in the workshop, he demands Tony "outfit this room with a chair, at least," and Tony has a plush, black leather chair with wheels delivered the next day._

_Loki takes one of Tony's Iron Man gauntlets and propels himself across the workshop for the whole afternoon while Tony tries to work._

_The next next day, Tony has another wheeled chair delivered. They each take a gauntlet and played a game Tony calls "bumper cars." In the midst of their mad cackling, Loki misfires into one of Stark's Iron Man missile prototypes. He immediately casts a barrier to cage in the blast, and Tony takes advantage of his distraction to crash his chair into him at full speed. They fall over in a tangle of limbs and chair, and they're still on the ground giggling with tears in their eyes when Steve runs down the stairs into the workshop with his shield held out before him, frantically asking, "I heard an explosion. Tony, are you okay?"_

_Loki hears the accusation -_ Did Loki harm you? _But then Steve continues, "Loki? Is that you?  Are you okay as well?" There is no accusation then, and Loki lets out a breath he didn't realize he was holding._

_Dumm-E rolls over to Steve offering a fire extinguisher, and Steve glares at them, places his shield on the ground, and accepts the fire extinguisher. He marches to the pile of chairs and limbs with patriotic purpose, and Loki and Tony look up sheepishly. Steve gives them both a charming smile before spraying them in the face with fire extinguisher foam._

_Called forth by the sound of destruction, the rest of the Avengers soon arrive at the workshop expecting combat. They instead arrive to Loki and Tony scrambling for cover to hide from the big bad Captain America._

_Steve jumps onto a table to continue spraying them from above, and over the sound of compressed foam flying towards him, Loki can hear Thor's thunderous laugh and Clint's snickering as he joins in with a second fire extinguisher and blasts Steve right on the butt. Bruce is in the back, chuckling, and Loki hears Natasha genuinely laugh for the first time._

_Clint and Steve are now fighting each other, and Loki feels Tony's arm come around him. He relaxes into Tony's arms and lets his world dissolve into foam and laughter._

_He wishes he could stay here for forever, but he can't. He already has a thousand reasons to stop Thanos, and now he has a reason to die doing it._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huhuhu, spot the Sherlock easter egg.
> 
> Please do not use fire extinguishers as toys.
> 
> There are several different kinds of fire extinguishers. There are fire extinguishers that release carbon dioxide to suffocate the fire. As you can imagine, this can also suffocate a person. There are fire extinguishers that spray highly corrosive chemicals. I think it's safe to assume that those chemicals won't do good things for you if you come into contact with them. From what I've researched, foam fire extinguishers don't seem to be hazardous, but there's still a risk of eye, skin, and respiratory irritation.


	4. Fight not flight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't have this story 100% planned out, so I'm adding a lot of the tags as I go along. That being said, If I add a chapter that has potentially triggering content, I'll definitely add it to the tags and warn you in the chapter notes.

The first thing Tony does when he wakes up is touch his chest.

"Bruce put in one of your back up reactors while you were passed out." Natasha supplies.

He forces his eyes open and fuck, his head hurts, it's too bright, and everything in this room from the bed sheets to the walls is whiter than a polar bear lost in a snow storm, and that only makes the brightness so much worse. The only thing that has some color is the off-white heart monitor by his bed. "Am I dreaming of a white Christmas?"

Natasha hands him a glass of water and a Tylenol pills. "Drink up and get up. Director Fury and the rest of the team are already in the conference room, and they're discussing next steps."

He decides that it's good thing Natasha chose kicking and stabbing over nursing as her career. Think of all the patients who would complain about forced physical exertion right after waking up from near-death experiences.

Natasha keeps talking while he gulps down water. "We retreated, and we're in an underground SHIELD facility. Thanos's army took over New York."

Tony places the empty water bottle on the bedside stand and squints until his eyes don't feel like a vampire's. "What happens to New York now?"

"We evacuated as many people as we could." Natasha looks away with downcast eyes, and her voice is audibly softer, if only by a bit.

Professionalism is how Natasha deals with inner turmoil. For Natasha, professionalism is concise sentences stripped of emotion. Did Natasha's professionalism just crack?

Natasha keeps too much hidden for him to know what she's thinking, but right now, he thinks he gets it. After all, they're in the same sinking ship. "Kind of sucks to lose a place that just started to feel like home, doesn't it?"

She stands up. "We're keeping the team waiting."

"Wait. What about Loki?" If he has to learn about the outcome of his massive fuck-up, he might as well ask Natasha. The pros of talking to Natasha is that if she judges, at least she doesn't display it.

"He broke into the Triskelion and stole the scepter. His whereabouts are unknown." And then Natasha answers the question he's too scared to ask, "We also found Pepper's body." 

He waters his budding hatred for Loki with grief.

* * *

He wasn't crying. There is no way he told Natasha to go first just so he could wash the redness from his eyes. He is emotionally intact, and he's ready to open this door and join the team in saving the world.

He reaches for the door handle and has to jump back because the door opens in his face, and the joyous sounds of intense bickering greet him. Bruce steps around the door and gives him an apologetic smile before darting away. Was Bruce green around the eyes or was it the lighting?

Tony takes a deep breath and steps in.

"There are still millions of people trapped in that city right now." Steve is leaning over the table with both hands planted firmly on polished veneer.

Across the round table, Fury is mirroring his pose. "We have no other option. We're looking at the lives of a few million in exchange for the rest of the world right now."

"The last time someone used that reasoning, we proved them wrong."  Steve raises his voice.

It's a complete fight for dominance, and no one wants to get in between them. Clint's sitting far back from the table and polishing his arrows, Natasha is watching silently, and even Thor is surprisingly quiet.

"Situations change, and I'm not risking the planet for the impossible scenario where you prove me wrong." Fury leans further forwards.

"We're receiving reinforcements from other countries and Asgard in less than a week. We can hold out until then, and I'll go in to New York to rescue civilians myself if I have to." Steve too leans further forwards.

"That's a week where Laufeyson can walk up and hand Thanos the last gem. We're not going to wait here like cows for slaughter."

Steve glares at Fury for another moment until finally, he growls and sits back down. He keeps glaring at Fury.

Because Tony has no sense of self preservation, he decides to speak up. "Hey, I see the party started without me. Catch me up to speed?"

Four pairs of eyes and Fury's single one turn to stare at him.

"They're going to nuke New York." And that's all Natasha says.

Oh.

Tony feels his heart accelerate to frantic and his stomach slow to frozen.

Nuke New York. No other option.

"You motherfucker, can not you think with your head instead of your dick when motherfucking Laufeyson is concerned?" Fury's berating him, but he hardly hears him.

His legs tense up; his brain tells him to flee.

Everyone is staring at him.

There could have been other options.

This isn't something he can flee from.

So many eyes on him.

Only one option now.

Where is there to flee to?

Loki has the scepter.

He helped Loki.

If he can't flee, can he fight?

He hates Loki.

 _"_ Tony." It sounds like Steve talking. "It took us an hour to find you. You're lucky you're not dead."

He thought he loved Loki.

Loki left him passed out and surrounded by enemy fire.

For an hour.

Pepper's gone.

She'll never drag him out of the workshop to make sure he eats again.

Maybe he could have saved her.

She'll never steer an entire board of directors to her will again.

But he passed out.

She'll never finish planning that charity fundraiser she was so focused on.

For an hour.

She'll never insist he patch himself up first thing after getting hurt ever again.

"Wait. An hour?" Something isn't adding up. "I passed out in the thick of fire for an hour, and I woke up without a scratch on me. Does that make sense to you?"

Fury does this condescending shoulder-raise, head-shake. His lips are pressed into a thin line, or, they were before he patronizes, "Are you suggesting that Loki protected you? Are you aware how lovesick you sound? Are you aware there are teenagers carving hearts on trees with more sense than you?"

Fuck Fury.

Clint doesn't even gaze up from polishing his arrows as he remarks, "Tony, I'm pretty sure that if Loki ever wrote a How To, it'd look something like this:  _Manipulating People 101. Option A: Sleep with them. Option B: Fake your death. Option C: Why not both?_ Maybe he protected you because you were a good lay."

Fuck Barton too.

"Your bickering is inane." Thor picks up his hammer and speaks for the first time since Tony walked in. "Your weak detonation would hardly scratch Thanos. Fortunately for you all, I thought ahead."

Everyone's eyes turn towards Thor, and Tony reminds himself to buy Thor the best alcohol money can buy when this saving the world shit is over.

"The night before the attack, Loki talked to me of taking the scepter away from Midgard." Thor tosses the hammer into the air and catches it on its way down. "I did not trust his intentions, so I slipped a tracking artifact onto his person. We need only activate it, find him, and retrieve the gem before he can deliver it to Thanos."

Clint puts down his arrow, leans forward, and asks, "And if he is on another planet in another galaxy, how do we get there?"

"If he's in the nine realms, by Bifrost. If not, with dark energy." Thor says it like it's such an obvious answer while tossing Mjolnir from one hand to another. "Any more questions?"

And then everyone rushes forwards with questions. "How? Are we traveling through wormholes?" and "Can we breathe in the atmospheres?" and "What kind of dangers could we face?" and Thor's just tossing his hammer back and forth while he answers like their questions are elementary.

"I don't like it, but I don't see an alternative." Natasha pitches in when the questions are exhausted..

"Count me in." Steve seconds.

"You have my bow." Clint pledges and twirls an arrow.

All eyes look to Tony again, but this time, they're expectant. "A chance to travel across the universe and save the world and beat Loki at his game? You had me at 'travel across the universe.' Hell yeah, I'm in."

"Someone better catch Bruce up." Fury strides out of the room. As far as blessings from Fury go, this is as good of one as they can hope for.

* * *

_Pepper Potts - Tony Stark's ex girlfriend, CEO of his company, and his best friend. He almost feels like a monster for doing this. "Ms. Potts," Loki calls out to her._

_Pepper turns around at the sound of her name. "I am quite sorry, Ms. Potts." Loki grabs her by the waist, presses two fingers to her carotid artery, and whispers a spell. Green tendrils crawl out of his fingertips and into her skin, fading her pulse to nothing._

_Loki catches her as she collapses and teleports to a location near where the Avengers team are struggling to hold back Thanos's army. There's an outcrop in the debris of fallen New York skyscrapers, and the Avengers would be blind to not see a body there, so that's where Loki lays Pepper down. He twists the ring on his middle finger and then teleports away. Thor or Clint will find her._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternatively, replace the words "a polar bear lost in a snowstorm" in the third paragraph with "the Exodus cast"


	5. Trust

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the accidental posting a few days ago; I clicked the wrong button.  
> I went back to previous chapters and italicized everything that's a flashback, so all the the time-jumping should be less confusing now.  
> This whole chapter is a flashback, but I'm going tell you here and leave it unitalicized because it's hard on the eyes.

"Yes, I've looked over all the statistics and records, and our production team has enough resources to handle this HOLY FU-" Tony's post-dinner activity of arguing with the board of directors and assuring them that no, launching arc reactor technology in Europe by next month is not going to put a strain on production is disrupted when two freaking giant crows the size of watermelons land on his balcony and peck on his window with the ferocity of a woodpecker.

"Let me put you on hold for one second, Johnson - I need to chase away a few crows before they drill a hole through my window." Tony tosses his Starkphone on the table and walks to the window. The birds pause their pecking and stare at him, but they don't move. Tony makes a face at them, and he swears one of them opened its beak and tried to copy his face. "Shoo, crows, don't you have a wall you need to be guarding?"

"Ravens." Loki corrects him after appearing out of seemingly nowhere and yeah, he's never going to get used to that. "The Allfather's messenger ravens, Huginn and Muginn, more specifically."

Recently, Loki hasn't been on speaking terms with two-thirds of his family members. Thor is the first third, Odin is the second, and it's no wonder Loki looks less than enthusiastic when he walks out to the balcony to receive the birds.

Loki starts _talking_ to the birds. Whatever, he's Tony Stark, and bird-whisperer alien god is hardly the strangest thing he ever witnessed. One of the birds hop onto Loki's arm, and damn, Tall-Dark-and-Mysterious in green v-neck and tight leather pants and riding boots with a giant raven perched on him may just be Tony's new sexual orientation. Then he realizes that Loki may well be arguing with family through avian communication right now, and he shouldn't be spying. Which reminds him... Johnson's still on hold.

Leaving Loki to bird-whispering,Tony returns to his phone call. "Yeah, as I was saying, we're right on track to launch the arc reactor in Europe. Want me to read you the statistics? 32.5 thousand terrawatt-hours a year power usage in Europe, and 78% of that is powered by non-renewable sources, and we want to replace all that with arc reactor technology by 2018, and the production teams can - you want me to stop talking? But you're the one who asked about this. Ok, a good evening to you too."

Tony throws his phone back onto the coffee table. After Afghanistan, his board questioned his every move. Iron Man suits and unlimited clean energy source and saving the world from alien invasion later, they're still questioning his every move. Something about PTSD and anxiety and blablabla as potential causes for unsound judgement. He's fortunate to have Pepper's support against the board.

"JARVIS, please tell me you recorded that conversation. I want to show Pepper how well I can handle annoying business things."

JARVIS's vaguely British voice comes through the speakers, "Like I have been doing since conception, I recorded this phone call just as I've recorded every other one."

"Is that sass I hear, Jay?" Tony walks to his personal bar for a glass of scotch. He deserves it.

"Sir, I have multiple machine learning programs that allow me to assimilate knowledge from my surroundings. If I have acquired sass, it is only because I learned it from my surroundings."

He returns with swirling a glass of ice and amber ambroisa of the alcohol gods. At some point while he was gone, Loki walked back in and dropped onto couch. Tony glances at him and asks "are you ok?" with his eyebrows, and Loki responds with a noncommittal shrug, and Tony doesn't think much of it before returning to work.

"Tell me about Pepper." Loki asks all of a sudden.

Tony tilts his head. "Goes well with salt. Why do you ask?"

Loki sits up and clasps his hands together, resting his elbows on his knees."You know of whom I ask, and I ask out of mere curiosity."

"Bullshit. You were talking to your dad's ravens, and I'm going to go on a limb here and say they weren't here to vacation in New York's parks, though the breadcrumb perks here are nice. I find it hard to imagine that Pepper's on your mind."

"Since you insist, I want to know how far you would go to keep her safe."

Tony tenses. _What's threatening Pepper?_   "You know something."

"I know lots of things." Loki shrugs again. "Part of the reason no one trusts me."

Maybe it was just too long of a day, but right now, he is sick of Loki's mind games. "Maybe people would trust you if you spoke what's on your mind for once."

Loki narrows his eyes and bites out, "I did that once upon a time, you know. No one listened."

Talking to Loki is more frustrating than talking to his company board. "Do you ever get sick of your no-one-trusts-me crap? Does Thor ever get sick of your crap? Look at Thor. He's been pining for you for months trying to get _some_ semblance of trust between you two going again, and you. Just. Ignore. Him. Like. He's. The. Criminal." He emphasizes his last words, and Loki's glare is colder than freezing.

Tony keeps talking because fuck it, he's not going to stop now. " Do you ever consider that people don' trust you because you don't trust them? Do you ever consider that this is a self-perpetuating cycle, and you're the one to blame?" And maybe he said those words with too much of a snarl, or maybe it was his crossed arms, or maybe those words just never should have come out of his mouth, but the room plummets into tension.

In rage, Loki is a lion. He leaps off the couch, grabs Tony by the throat, and hisses, "If you must know, then know that Thanos has five of six Infinity Gems, and he is coming to Earth for the last. Go on now, trust me."

Tony didn't know the words "trust me" could be uttered with so much venom.

Loki's grip is cutting off air, and Tony struggles to breathes.

"Trust me to not rip your throat out right here, right now, because friendship and _trust_ is all you need to deter Thanos from his quest to destroy the universe."

Just when he thinks he may pass out, Loki lets go, and Tony falls to the floor.

Long, gentle fingers press against Tony's neck, and the startings of angry bruises disappear from his skin. "I'm sorry; I should not have done that," Loki apologizes.

In the time it took for Tony to take his first breath, Loki transitioned from rage to remorse. For not the first time, Tony wonders if he's in over his head with Loki.

"It's okay to ask for help, you know," Tony gasps out.

Loki seems to consider his words, but then he walks away towards the door.

Tony shouts after him, "Where are you going, asshole?"

"To talk with Thor." And then without turning on the lights, Loki walks into the hallway and disappears into the darkness.

Tony decides he need more scotch.

* * *

Sometime later, Loki returns and sits down on the bar stool next to him while he's nursing his fifth glass of scotch. Neither of them say a word.

Tony takes another sip of his drink. Loki stares at his fingers. There's a ring on Loki's middle finger - three bands, outer ones silver and middle one black - and he doesn't remember seeing it before.

"I asked Thor for help," Loki finally says.

"And?" Tony presses.

"Asgard is already sending reinforcements, and we need to discuss battle plans and the enemies' weaknesses."

"JARVIS, call together the team for a meeting to save the universe. And Loki? I'd do anything in my power to protect Pepper. The same goes for you." But in Loki's case, it seems like he's mainly protecting Loki from his thoughts.

* * *

 At some point during the team meeting, Thor is waving his hands all over the place as he explains how to counter Kree combat tactics, and Tony notices Thor's wearing a ring that looks exactly like Loki's. Are friendship rings a thing amongst Asgardians?


	6. Serpent's Tongue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know if a trigger warning for drug use is the norm, but there's a very brief mention of drug use at the beginning of this chapter.

Scepter stored away, check. Wounds healed, check. No one following him, check.

The hidden paths of Yggdrasil are accessible from a few points on each realm. One of the several on Midgard is in this very grove where an ancient ash tree hides a hole just large enough for a human to fall through. Loki once had the pleasure of informing Tony that  _Alice in Wonderland_  is actually about a girl who fell through this exact hole, ended up in Alfheim, mistook fairy dust for sugar, and came back with only hallucinations for memories.

Loki steps into root of the great World Tree.

Stars illuminate countless branches and paths and forks, and Loki explored enough in his childhood to know these passages by heart. He heads downwards for the deepest roots. There reside the three Norns -Skuld, Verdandi, and Urd - timeless, wise, almost as old as Yggdrasil itself. The curators of destiny, they can reveal your destiny for a small price. They can help you change it for a much larger price.

At some point on his journey downwards, and the stars fade out one by one. He continues traveling in absolute darkness, relying on memory alone to guide his steps. This deep in Yggdrasil, the paths are very much like caves systems; there are tunnels, there are caverns, and there are perilous drops. One wrong step could plummet him into the void, and the thought slithers across him like an anaconda, tightening his chest until he feels his heart ready to burst.

He hears soft rustling as animals move out of his way, the persistent drip, drip, drip of water percolating through the roots accompany his journey, and he makes no effort to mask the sound of his footsteps. Yet over it all, he still hears the distant roar of the void. He thinks he's still sane.

He continues like this for hours. Sanity is a relative state of mind.

The drips eventually turn into a trickle, and, the soft scent of flowers wafts through the air. Light slowly returns to the tunnels, but in the form of an ethereal, turquoise glow from mushrooms lining the tunnel walls and luminescent moths fluttering about; he can see again. The mushrooms and moths get more numerous as he walks deeper; he's getting close.

Pale, glowing flowers too now dot his path, and it's not long before he reaches a thick curtain of white wisterias hanging from the tunnel ceilings. He brushes the flowers aside, and a few startled lunar moth fairies fall out from the flowers, right themselves, and dash deeper into the tunnel. Loki steps past the curtain and waits.

He doesn't have to wait long.

"Verdandi, do you want to get that? I'm a bit busy here." A clear, feminine voice rings out from the directions the fairies disappeared to.

"Kids these days don't know how to make an appointment before they come barging in." Another voice grumbles.

"I'll go get it." A third, slightly annoyed voice - Urd's - volunteers.

Loki smiles just a little. He holds deep respect for them all, but Urd is his favorite.

The moth fairies fly out first to announce Urd's arrival, and when the Norn appears, they dance around Loki's head to mark his presence.

"Thank you, girls; you may return to your rest." Urd instructs the fairies, and they flit back into the flower vines. She turns her attention to him. "Loki, what brings you here?"

"Urd, you are as beautiful as ever," Loki greets her and places a kiss on the back of her hand. "I seek your aid in creating a certain concoction - Serpent's Tongue."

Urd pauses and studies his face, "I trust you have the necessary ingredient then." Loki looks her in the eye and nods, and she looks at him sadly. "Very well, follow me."

Urd leads him to a small cavern with glowing mushrooms and wisteria hanging from the ceiling in a kaleidoscope pattern; their light washes the space a pale, ghostly color.

A well built of silver moonstone rests in the middle of the cavern, and Urd beckons him towards the well.

"You betrayed someone who trusted you to do the right thing yet again, child," The Norn Urd chides as she picks up a pail engraved with runes. "The worlds were not meant to be walked alone."

She drops the pail into the well.

"It was a small price to pay." Loki shrugs. He doesn't want to think about the sacrifices anymore.

"The loneliness will feel like the void all over again." Her eyes are piercing when she looks into his. Loki turns away. 

The bucket falls until it disappears and keeps falling. The rope on the ground unwinds coil by coil and follow the bucket into the dark.

Loki clenches his fist. His stomach clenches harder. "I did not come here to discuss gossip or my journey through the void."

There are still coils and coils of rope to go.  _Compartmentalize._

"Of course not, you were never one to sit around without mischief to orchestrate or knowledge to glean," Urd acknowledges. "Though I've heard tales of the void from others who fell, you know."

Loki stares into the well.

Urd is either oblivious to his discomfort or unsympathetic because she keeps talking. "They tell me, it's not the cold that crystallizes your lungs nor the heat that boils your blood."

 _The void was a thing of the past_. The bucket is still falling; its journey may well be endless.

"It's not the quietness that amplifies the rush of blood through your ears into the angry roar of stars or the darkness that turns your eyes milk-white and vestigial either."

Loki's voice threatens to waver. "I did not come here to talk of the void. What are you playing at?"

"It's the loneliness, isn't it? You feel as if you will drift for an eternity without a pair of arms to hold you through the pain, and while all your loved ones move on without you, you start to wonder how you became the incarnation of madness."

The clang of a metal pail hitting water sounds.

Urd keeps talking as she pulls rope up slowly. Painfully slowly. "But you know all this, and you are either stupid enough to experience it again, or you don't plan on coming out of this plan alive."

Patience is one of Loki's only virtues, and Urd seems to have driven it from him. With a trembling sigh and a flick of his hands, he brings the bucket back to the top. "I have bigger concerns than my personal welfare." It's hard to be patient when any of Urd's next words could break him.

Urd sighs too. "Very well then. Now, if you'll come with me to my work station." She carries the pail walks to the back of the cavern

* * *

Urd talks to herself as she droppers each ingredient into a small vial until it holds a pitch black liquid. "Venom of the serpent Nidhogg, water from the deepest reaches of Yggdrasil, essence of nightshade, and..."  She trails off and holds out her hand.

"A soul you can never earn forgiveness for stealing." Loki finishes. He takes a deep breath. Nowhere to go but forwards. He is almost reverent as he takes out a orb of warm, orange light that is Pepper's soul and places her on Urd's waiting hand.

In this ghostly cavern, Pepper is a sun.

She doesn't deserve this.

"Are you sure, child?" Urd's hand pauses over the vial.

Loki smiles wistfully. "Yes," He confirms.

Urd begins to tilt her hand.

Loki can still snatch back Pepper's soul.

The soul begins to roll down the palm of her hand.

He still can return it, try his luck at an alternative way to defeat Thanos, and maybe try to earn forgiveness too.

The soul reaches Urd's fingertips.

Loki does nothing and lets gravity cement his fate.

Pepper falls, and the dark pool of poison eagerly swallows her light.

He is a monster.

Urd seals the vial and with places it in Loki's hands with care. "Serpent's Tongue, a poison potent enough to fell a Titan."

He stares and stares at the newly-concocted poison. So much loss contained in one small bottle. "Are my plans that transparent?" 

"Child, you would not go to these extremes for any other purpose." Urd's hand come to clasp his. "You paid a heavy price. Now see it through."


	7. How to

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The events in this chapter are all flashbacks.
> 
> Chapter warnings: aftermath of suicide attempt, torture, dub-con, Loki.
> 
> Sorry about how these tags weren't in the story when I first started. In my original plot line, Loki felt too tame, and I felt like I wasn't doing justice to his character. I changed the plot up and whelp, new tags happened.

To tell a flawless lie, you must first lie to yourself.

You must pour faith into your new reality, strengthen it until you can build castles out of distortions and lock yourself in the highest tower. You must shape every thought and action into serpentine thorns so no one can reach you. An impenetrable kingdom built of lies.

Speaking the lie becomes second nature. All your actions become that lie. You become nothing but the lie.

_You want this. Because then, you won't die alone._

* * *

You crash into a barren rock of a planet. The ground feels disgustingly solid under a body now unused to feeling even the soft brushes of air.

You shout your fury into skies and learn you can still hear. Can still scream. You are wretchedly alive.

 _He_  appears, golden, ghastly, gargantuan.

You've heard of him. The Mad Titan, the one obsessed with the concept of death, the one who sent entire realms to its doom as offerings to death.

 _You've fallen a long way from home, wayward princeling._ His voice is harsh gravel, and it digs into you.

 _He_  drags you up by the hair, and your knees scrape against the rocky ground.  _Physical contact._  You almost fall over in your need to follow the hand in your hair, to maintain the physical contact.

He studies you, and you study him. _You could be useful yet_. His voice grates against your skin.

When he releases you, the sudden loss of contact brings you crashing to the ground.

He tells you of an powerful artifact lost to a distant planet. He tells you to retrieve it; should you succeed, power and greatness await you.

Power and greatness. For you. It’s the funniest thing you’ve heard in forever, and from your lowly position on the ground, you chuckle, and then you laugh and laugh and laugh.

You find yourself locked in a room too small and too hot. Sweat clings to your pores.

You drown in humidity, but you can't find a drop of water. This is also hilarious, and you howl with laughter.

* * *

Your lungs are so dry. Laughing became painful a while ago, and you stopped laughing sometime after that.

He comes again with the same offer. You resume your laughing.

* * *

You vaguely have the presence of mind to remember you are being punished for something. Though for what, you can’t quite remember anymore.

The heat makes it impossible to think.

It was for being weak.

Your throat is so dry it cracks. You devour your own blood. You devour your weakness.

But it’s not enough. Your breaths come too shallow. Your eyes flutter, then shut.

There is a special hell called consciousness. You pass in and out of it.

There's a section of your brain that's been throbbing for three sessions of consciousness.

Does your fever burn hotter than the stars?

A dying star destroys everything close to itself and dies alone.

You burn like a dying star.

* * *

He retrieves you the sixth time you wake up. Or was it seventh?

Keeping track of time in terms of how many times you pass out is horribly unreliable.

He offers you a mirror. You look like death.

Gaunt, pale, sunken, emaciated, bedraggled, powerless, pathetic, mad. Which word do you use to describe your reflection?

He sits on his towering throne drinking from a golden goblet and again offers you power and greatness.  _A kingdom for you to rule, billions to kneel at your feet._

 _Mad._  Your reflection grins at you.

No harm in becoming madder then.

You will not die alone.

You crawl onto his throne and straddle him, tease the goblet out of his hands, and toss its contents down your throat.

His sharp inhale gives you all you need to know to proceed.

 _Look at you, the ruler of an entire galaxy, and yet you look to a lost prince for aid._  Your words are silk; your smile, arrogant edge of a sharpened knife.  _How desperate and alone are you?_

 _I’ll let you in on a secret_. You place your hands over his crotch and lean forwards to brush his ear and hiss,  _I never wanted the throne._

You tilt your head back, exposing the stretch of your neck, and you laugh. Every part of your body down to the hands between his legs trembling with each mad cackle. He turns hard under you.

Your eyes are on his the entire time, and you watch the lust burn in his eyes.

Oh, you’ll make him burn yet.

* * *

You're both mad, desperate animals.

You ride up and down his length gasping and moaning at every exquisite sensation you have been deprived of for so long.

He breathes heavily, but when you run fingers down his neck, his entire body quakes.

His hands roam everywhere, possessive enough to bruise.

He comes in to kiss you. You dodge and bite his collarbone.

 _If you offer me power and greatness,_ You breathe out. _I want it by your side. _  
__

 _I will destroy this pathetic universe,_ _recreate it,_ he rasps, _and you will rule by my side._

You lean in, wrap your arms around the back of his head, and push your hips down hard, sending jolting shudder down both of you. _I want you,_ you whisper.

He comes on a cry, and you follow.

He comes in to kiss you again, and you let him, lips, tongue, teeth, and all.

You silently count to ten, push him back, and say, _I believe we have terms to discuss. First, I want an army._

* * *

And when you die, the bards will remember you in the songs of history as a lie. All that will be left of you are the echoes of a lie.

But if you told the right lie, at least you won't die alone.


	8. Hope

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Liberal disregard for the laws of physics, but this is a Marvel fanfic so......

The Second Battle of New York.

Casualties.

Civilians.

Potts.

Virginia Potts.

Thor demanded they rest and gather provisions before they depart. Something about traveling across worlds is exhausting, and they need to be in top condition to face Loki.

Tony's not an expert on interstellar travel, so he's not going to argue with Thor there, but 12 freaking hours? Thor wants them to rest for 12 freaking hours where at any time, Loki could give Thanos the last piece he needs to destroy the whole universe. But hey, at least they'll be well-rested when the world ends.

But Tony can't sleep. Maybe he got all the rest he needed while he passed out, maybe insomnia is one of the symptoms of grief, maybe SHIELD facility beds don't agree with his back, or maybe something just isn't adding up.

Because he can't sleep, Tony hacks SHIELD's servers, and that's how he finds himself staring at a computer screen with every cell in his body trembling.

Is this something he wants to see? His routine hacking of SHIELD databases never yielded happy information. But this? This is opening the gates to obsession and self destruction.

For a genius and billionaire, denial is a never-ending stage of grief. There are people who don't have the brains, there are those who don't have the money, but for those who have both, any problem is theoretically solvable. Like the death of Pepper Potts. Correction - temporary departure from life. It's not really death if he can bring her back, is it?

He'll find all the world's most brilliant minds, and they'll work on this for the rest of their lives. He'll discover immortality so they can work on this for an eternity. As long as it takes to bring Pepper back.

What is death to a genius?

But who is he lying to? The brain is the most complex structure in the universe. Brain cells die three minutes after oxygen supply stops, and all several billion neural connections decay. One hundred billion neurons overworked from planning a charity event for New York education and finalizing an acquisition and launching the arc reactor at the same time. One hundred billion neurons that also have to be stressed out by Tony nearly getting killed every other day. One hundred billion neurons that still found strength to pull the muscles of her face into smile after smile. All gone. Amino acids and sugars and lipids and ions that once found a purpose in being Pepper Potts now sit in a meaningless pile. Worm food doesn't count as a purpose.

Even if he brings breath back to her lungs, circulation back to her vessels, movement back to her limbs, he'll never bring back the compassionate, beautiful, driven, steadfast mind of Pepper Potts.

What is genius to death?

This is opening the gates to acceptance.

 _Death report._  Tony finally clicks the button.  _I need to know how she died before I can patch her up_ , he tells himself.

Pepper's file opens, and Tony memorizes every detail. Where she died, what she looked like, what she wore, how death froze her face in an expression of shock.

And Tony knows he will never let go of denial.

Pepper, found dead without a scratch on her. Not shredded by alien weaponry, not crushed by rubble, not scorched by heat, not choked by smoke. For fuck's sake, her make up and tied up hair stayed perfect through her death.  _Not a scratch._ It's exactly how he was found... With the exception that he was alive.

Loki did this. Tony's sure of it.

And he left her in plain sight for them to find. And Loki doesn't do things without a purpose.

Did Loki really kill her?

Is Loki still on our side?

And faintly, he asks himself,  _does Loki still love me?_ ** _  
_**

Loki.

Loki.

Loki.

The little shit appeared out of nowhere in Stark tower's penthouse floor a year ago dressed in an impeccable suit and with a surprising lack of "KNEEL!" commands. Nonetheless, Tony screamed at JARVIS to assemble the Avengers and get his suit, and he threw his phone at Loki because he's a billionaire with nothing else in grabbing distance. Loki easily caught it, tossed it back and said, "You'd get more force if you put your legs into it too." And then with no explanation or greeting or anything, he plopped down on one of his couches and just laid there with his feet hanging over the end of the couch. Tall fucker.

Loki didn't say anything even when the whole team arrived ready to put another Loki-shaped hole in the floor. Instead, he acted all innocent, as if he didn't understand why they were all armed. And then Fury called telling them to not panic because Loki was working as a defense consultant as recompense for war crimes and was on his way to the Stark Tower. Just a bit late on the memo, and just in time to dash Hulk's hopes and dreams of redecorating Tony's floor.

So grudgingly, they accepted Loki as a Stark Tower resident.

And then to the disapproval of pretty much everyone, he they became fuck buddies, and something that seemed like instinct at the time told him he could trust Loki. Looking back with the power of hindsight, it was probably arrogance or horniness. Though one could argue that horniness is an instinctive reaction, but now Tony's digressing.

There was a time when Loki laid over his chest, sharp features illuminated by the blue glow of his reactor, lips parted, eyes gazing into his, long fingers tracing the outline of the arc reactor, and Tony no longer feared he was drawing sacrificial sigils. Loki whispered so softly that it was almost lost to the whir of the air conditioning, "I think... this is where I would like to stay. For as long as you, time, and externalities allow."

It was the closest Loki ever came to saying the words "I love you."

There was a time when they were both lost to the workshop for hours on end, sifting through terabytes of data, trashing failed hypotheses, and deriving equations that required the creation of another alphabet system... By the end of the week, they were finishing each other's sentences on using the Casimir effect to achieve the negative energy density needed to stabilize low energy worm holes. Tony refuses to call them portals. They worked so well together.

When they finalized the work, Loki dragged him up into a dance. They drank and danced through the night while JARVIS abused the hologram projector as rave lights.

There was a time when Loki probably betrayed them and killed Pepper and was going to finalize the end of the worlds, and Tony was still hoping that he didn't fake his sentiments. Hope can be an ugly, shameful thing, and if he was anyone but Tony Stark, he would be feeling shame at how desperately he is hoping that Loki still loves him.

But that night... That night they were celebrating their discovery... Tony drank so much, and Loki helped him to the bedroom where he promptly passed out. And then Loki didn't stay.

At the time, he thought Loki didn't want to deal with his drunken ass, but that wasn't it. Loki went back to the workshop.

He pulls out his StarkPhone. "JARVIS," he says, voice shaky with either hope or apprehension. He isn't sure which. Maybe it's a mix of the two. "Did Loki ever use the shop for personal projects?"

"Yes, though the results of his projects are on a private server encrypted with a 4096-bit RSA key," JARVIS comes on through the phone speaker

4096 bits. Loki does not joke around when it comes to security. Fucking SHIELD doesn't use something that ridiculous, and still, the only reason he can hack them at any time is because they can't find the virus he installed in their systems. 4096 bits. That's a key he is never cracking.

But he trusts JARVIS to already have it cracked.

"However, I have taken the liberty of decrypting it for you." JARVIS says 

He loves JARVIS. "Did you use the acoustics cryptoanalysis algorithm? You better have used that because I caused a coffee shortage in New York coding that."

"Of course, sir."

"JARVIS, my brainchild, send it to me."

His phone blinks with a "file received" alert, and he turns on the phone's hologram function. Blue light projects equations and circuits and graphs throughout the room, and never let it be unsaid that Tony is a whore for knowledge. Because there's a world to save and Pepper to avenge, but he's staring at Loki's work, dumbfounded. That equation in front of his face? That proves it's possible to bend light by manipulating magnetic waves.  _Illusions._  That's how Loki makes illusions. And that giant section of calculations using the alphabet they only recently created? That warps space-time with dark energy. That's how teleportation and worm holes work.

These are the equations that turn science fiction into nonfiction and magic into reality.

Dear god, Loki is simply brilliant.

And Tony is drowning in the hope that Loki didn't betray them because he wants to kiss Loki more than ever.

What was it that some author said? Hope is the denial of reality? This is denial of the highest, saddest form.

He is Tony Stark, genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist, and he is cocooning himself in wishful lies while around him, the future of science blooms from a tiny phone screen.

"Sir?" JARVIS says. "I have discovered -"

Tony turns off his phone and cuts JARVIS off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit of a nerd out moment: 
> 
> RSA is one of the most secure encryption methods. For reference, the typical Windows computer uses a 72-bit RSA key. That should take several life times for a few thousand computers to brute force it. If a key was 4096-bits long, it would take 2^4024 as long to brute force every possible combination. Those computers could work until the inevitable heat death of the universe, and that key still wouldn't be cracked. (Originally explained by ExtremeTech user DOSguy in the comment section of below link)
> 
> But then, these researchers analyzed the noises made by a CPU to crack the encryption. The technique JARVIS uses to crack the key is briefly explained here.
> 
> http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/173108-researchers-crack-the-worlds-toughest-encryption-by-listening-to-the-tiny-sounds-made-by-your-computers-cpu
> 
> Also, Margaret Weis is responsible for the quote "Hope is the denial of reality"


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait, but updates are going to be sparse. School is busy, and my life is a bit of a mess. Sorry. :(

Normal people count sheep. Tony isn't normal, so he lies in bed integrating magnetic flux from a sheep's brain. It's a ridiculous exercise, but it's shutting off his thoughts, and he needs to sleep. It works because his last conscious thought is something is about something about modeling the lipid bi-layer as a capacitor, and then his brain shuts off.

Some short time later, something slams into his face, and he jumps out of bed screaming, hands clawing at the attacker on his face. It's hard, metallic, and surrounding his whole face, and he panics because  _holy shit,_  it could suffocate him.

 _What the hell is going on? Why is he being attacked at a SHIELD base? Is the rest of the team aware of this threat?_  His fingers scrabble at whatever is around his face, but he can't get it off.

"JARVIS! HELP! SEND HELP!" He yells.

"Sir, I fail to see what you need help with, but I will send the Avengers regardless." JARVIS sounds loud. Very loud. He sounds like Pepper dragging him to go to an executive meeting while he has a hangover loud. In fact, JARVIS sounds like he's right next to Tony's ears.  _Oh._  Tony gets it now. No one was attacking him; JARVIS took control of the Iron Man helmet and put it on him.

"JARVIS, you fucking tool! What the hell are you fucking doing?" He yells, not yet awake or calm enough to communicate without inserting profanities at least every five words.

JARVIS sounds only a little regretful when he responds. "I was informing you of additional files I found, but you turned off your phone. I decided to leave you to your rest at first, but then I analyzed the files. This additional file in particular makes great use of equations related to wormhole creation and stabilization, and Mr. Laufeyson worked extensively on this design. I thought it necessary for you to see this, and therefore, I piloted the helmet onto your head so I may talk to you."

Tony's becoming awake enough to be curious. "JARVIS, show me these files, and next time you try something like this, realize you are reaching crazy ex-girlfriend fangirl level of persistent."

"Persistence is often the only tactic that works with you, sir." JARVIS says, completely unrepentant, and displays several schematics onto his HUD.

Tony looks through them, and one in particular jumps out and makes him want to slap himself. It's of a 3-D model of a round figure about the diameter of a finger with three bands - it's exactly like the ring he saw on both Thor and Loki. It's the ring that he passed off as a positive sign of them finally renewing familial ties, but now that he thinks about it, he doesn't know what Loki and Thor talked about that night at all.  _Loki, what are you doing?_  If Loki worked behind his back on this and put so much effort into hiding it though, then this ring can't be anything that harmless. This pretty much confirms Loki -  _and Thor!_  - are plotting against them. Loki could have planned to betray everyone in exchange for some of Thanos's good grace one he became dictator of the world, and Thor would be the perfect co-conspirator because he'd do anything to prove to Loki he can be a better brother, and none of them has reason to mistrust Thor. Whatever lies Loki told him, Thor must have happily jumped at the chance to work with his brother again, and Tony suddenly doesn't know if he can trust Thor anymore.

Which sucks because suddenly, the door bursts open, and Thor runs in wielding his hammer and cries, "Tony! The voice in the ceiling told me you needed help!"

Tony's eyes immediately fly to the ring still decorating Thor's hand, and he has to fight the urge to scramble for his gauntlet and blast Thor out of here. Compared to Thor, he's a frail mortal without most of his armor, and if Thor chose to throw his hammer at him, he would turn into pulp. No, better to pretend as if he still knows nothing.

"Nope, I changed my mind. I'm all good. Definitely was not having a nightmare and screaming like a goat or anything. Don't need help. You can go back to bed" He says and waves Thor out.

Thor ignores the suggestion and walks into the room. He clasps a bear paw of a hand - the one with the ring - over Tony's shoulder, and Tony barely stop himself from flinching. The gesture is uncomfortable and brings back bad memories from long ago - Obediah's hand used to go around that shoulder all the time. Instead, he lets Thor's hand remain, and he plasters on a smile.

Thor smiles back and says, "Aye, Tony, and you should return to your rest too. Tomorrow, there is an adventure to be had."

 _An adventure in betrayal?_  he wants to accuse, but Tony reminds himself that Thor is capable of ripping him to pieces. Instead, he lets Thor's hand remain on his shoulder, and he redirects his brain. _Focus on the logic, not the emotions._ The ring. It creates wormholes - he figured that much out, and he needs to figure how it fits into Loki's plan so he can stop him. And he needs to warn the rest of the team.

 _Dammit._  There are too many actors in this damn boy band of heroes. Natasha and Loki for sure. Tony can act when the situation requires it, but he never knew Thor to be an actor. He never took Thor to be the kind of person to talk about "courageous acts" while plotting mutiny against his team.

Thor makes a start to leave, but then Natasha shows up. And then Bruce, and then Clint, and then Steve. Damn himself for making JARVIS send the whole team. Now there's an impromptu party in his room, but with everyone here, this may be his best chance at confronting Thor. He may as well take advantage of the support he'll have here, so he casually walks to the table where he put his suit. He finally takes off the helmet that JARVIS so kindly put on him and pretends to fiddle with the gauntlet, greeting everyone and rambling the whole time.

"Hey guys, thanks for getting the memo. Glad you could all make it to Tony Stark's impromptu sleep over."

"Tony, what happened? JARVIS said you needed help." Steve, ever responsible, asks.

"Yeah, sorry for ringing you guys all up at this ungodly hour," He looks Natasha in the eye as he says it, giving a slight emphasis to the word "ringing" and subtle toss of his head in Thor's direction.  He has to trust Nat to understand.

Natasha's eyes glance towards Thor's hand, and she nods her head once. The nod is so small that Tony only notices because he's looking for it, and Tony breathes in relief. He has Natasha's attention, so he continues. "It's nothing, really. I was having a nightmare. You know, those being chased by Thanksgiving turkey vampires off a cliff episodes and such? Yeah, I dreamed that I ended up on Santa's naughty list, and he sent Christmas reindeer after me. And these reindeer had a device that sent me through wormholes. And if I screamed like a teenage girl at a One Direction concert, it was definitely because these wormhole devices make science fiction nerds cum buckets."

Tony gauges Natasha's reaction. She simply rolls her eyes, and he feels a little offended that she thinks the best way to go about this is act indifferent to his problems. "If that is all, then we should go back to sleep." She says like she's an exasperated babysitter.

Fine, he'll play along. "What she said. Party's over. Go back to sleep to prepare for the big day" Tony waves them off.

Slowly, and with a lot of profanities followed by Tony's name, everyone turns to leave. Tony watches for Natasha's next move.

As Thor is about to walk out, Natasha slides up to him and punches him in the neck and delivers a shock from her stinger. And because Nat has no qualms against playing dirty, she delivers a second sting straight to Thor's crotch. Thor folds over onto the ground, and Natasha wastes no time plucking the ring from his finger. "Help me restrain him," she says. "There's something he's not telling us."

Tony doesn't get it. No one gets it. Clint's the only one putting cuffs onto Thor, and everyone else is staring at Natasha in shock. She took out Thor in two moves. She's swift and efficient and good, but Thor doesn't fall to normal blows.

"Tranquilizer developed against aliens super-humans and the like; it turns their own strength against them" she says casually like she didn't just defeat a Norse god in two seconds. "I had the stingers modified to hold a few doses. It was meant for Loki in case he went dark side again, but it seems to have found an unexpected use."


End file.
